


Guiding Light

by maniacalchimera



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Everybody Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9431636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maniacalchimera/pseuds/maniacalchimera
Summary: As the world explodes around them, Baze Malbus walks, and he prays.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookwormally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwormally/gifts).



Even in the daylight, the kyber of Chirrut’s bow staff has always been the brightest thing Baze sees. His eyes trail it as his goddamn idiot of a partner crosses the battlefield, lasers exploding around him. Baze picks off anyone that gets close, like he always does, despite the slightest shake in his fingers, and Chirrut reaches the master switch. He pulls the lever and the signal lights up, and he turns back towards Baze with a smile that’s somehow brighter than his staff.

Then Baze’s vision erupts into another brightness, one as white as death, and his entire world erupts with it.

Safety is the last thing on his mind as the light fades. The laser fire, the explosions, even the loud crunching steps of the AT-ATs all disappear from Baze’s consciousness; he needs to reach Chirrut. Baze runs along the same path in half his partner’s time and drops to his knees next to Chirrut’s slumped body. He reaches and turns the monk over to rest in his lap, heart dropping to the ground. There’s no reaction, not even a groan of pain. The explosion was from the back, and Chirrut’s face is dirty but only bleeding from a scuff against the ground. The rest of him is not so lucky, left arm bent forward in a way it’s certainly not supposed to be and skin burnt a dark red. Baze reaches for his face first, cupping Chirrut’s cheeks in his fingers, but there’s no movement, no knowing smile, no stupid comment about how dirty his fingernails get handling the gun, get them off his face, you giant brute. Baze’s breath catches in his throat, and he tugs Chirrut forward, tucking the smaller man under his chin as if that can shield him from what’s already happened. He lets one hand drop slightly and then stops as it brushes his partner’s neck.

But there is a pulse.

“Chirrut?” Baze pulls back, as if expecting a response, but there’s only the slightest of twitches at Chirrut’s nose; he’s barely breathing. The remains of the satellite creak above them as they take another laser blast, and Baze looks up. They need to get back to the ship. They went in a semicircle, the ship can’t be that far, but… Baze looks across the sand and shallow water, littered with stormtroopers and giant walkers all shooting at the few remaining patches of rebel troops. He looks back to Chirrut, to his bow staff, which is still glowing bright amidst the dust and debris.

Baze stands, cradling Chirrut in one arm. He reaches for the staff and lays it carefully under Chirrut’s right arm, a guiding light above him. Next he picks up his gun. It’s large and unwieldy, but he can still shoot one-handed if he’s not looking for accuracy. He’s got more than enough rounds to disregard accuracy; he will scorch the goddamn earth if he has to. Across the water, the landing pad calls to him, the tips of cargo ships visible above the trees.

Baze Malbus begins to walk, and begins to pray.

It’s a slow trudge. Baze’s boots were built for dry sand, not wet slop that grows heavier with each step. “I am one with the Force,” he mumbles, barely audible beneath the sounds of battle, “the Force is with me.” A laser sears past his face, and he lifts the gun and fires a burst. He only needs one shot to hit, but three do, and the stormtrooper drops to the ground. Another approaches from the side and falls as well. The water tugs at his legs and the cargo ships don’t seem to be getting any bigger, but Baze continues to move.

“I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.” It lacks the speed, the fluidity of Chirrut’s voice, but if Baze thinks hard enough, he can almost imagine his partner speaking instead of him. He doesn’t close his eyes, but the water in front of him shifts to the sands of Jedha, the world empty except for the stones of their courtyard and the hardy brush plants that Chirrut always joked would grow berries if they had enough faith. Chirrut is chanting, meditating as Baze fixes another hole in the crumbling wall. This time, he doesn’t tell his partner to shut up. Why would he ever want Chirrut silent?

The chanting slips, his own rough voice instead, and Baze stumbles forward, barely catching himself. Chirrut’s bow staff tips into his vision, and he looks up at the light. “I am one with the Force.” He takes another step. “The Force is with me.” They’re halfway there, more if he could just walk faster. He mutters an apology to his unconscious partner between lines and pushes himself harder, arms jostling the weights of both gun and monk.

He’s almost to the trees when the motion catches his eye. Beside them, thirty meters to their right, a stormtrooper stands on a sandbank with their hand above their head. They throw something forward, a black and red sphere wailing as it careens through the air.

It’s too late to move. Baze turns away, shielding Chirrut with his body. The grenade doesn’t make it, slamming the ground five meters away, but it sends up rocks and debris from beneath the water and Baze buckles as something sharp impales his right leg. The shallow water turns a dark brownish-red as blood mixes with the wet sand.

Baze turns his gun on the trooper anyway. Lasers rip through the spray of water, and Baze keeps shooting until he’s sure nothing else will come that way. Then, he moves again. His right leg protests, screaming with pain and unable to move. It’s stuck in the sand, and he tugs and tugs to the point where he feels something rip; but the sand rips, too, releasing his foot in an explosion of dust and mud. Baze looks to the staff again, its light lining up perfectly with the cargo ship through the trees. “I am one with the Force,” he starts again, voice straining with every push it takes his body to drag them towards the landing pad. “The Force is with me. I am one with the Force, the Force is with me!”

His left foot hits asphalt instead of sand and Baze almost relaxes. Blood and sand stick to the black stone below as he drags his right foot behind him, a useless weight made up for only as the back of his gun digs into the ground for support. Almost there, they’re almost there. The landing pad is a mess of fire and corpses, but the living stormtroopers have moved to the action and Baze is able to get to the ship’s dock without another shot fired. He tosses the gun inside and uses his free hand to pull himself the rest of the way up the dock.

Scorch marks along the walls greet him, and Baze almost collapses, only keeping himself up with the burnt machinery. It’s hot through his sleeve and he hisses. “Rook!” he shouts. There’s no answer, and his stomach meets his heart on the floor, falling into melted dents from an incendiary grenade. “Rook!” he calls again. “Rook! Bodhi! _Bodhi!_ ”

There’s a clank of metal hitting metal, and after a moment, a face appears from the compartment to below deck. The left side is near unrecognizable, burn marks bright red and stretching across like lightning tearing through the flesh. The right side stares up at him, expression a morph of pain and disbelief, but still familiar. “Baze?”

“Fuck.” Baze has to lean his whole weight into the side of the ship so that he can keep himself from dropping Chirrut. “No, it’s Lord goddamn Vader. Tell me what happened later. Can you move?”

“Well, sort of. On the right side, mostly.” Baze can hear the cracking in Bodhi’s voice even as he tries for his normal optimistic tone. The poor kid is probably barely holding on to the ladder up.

“What a coincidence,” he says, “cuz my right side’s gone to hell. You need to help me get Chirrut down there.”

Bodhi stares at him, eyebrows furrowing and then immediately unfurrowing as he scowls in pain. “I don’t know if I can catch him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“If you can make sure I don’t fall off the damn ladder, I might be able to bring him down.” Baze tries to push himself back to his feet. The right leg buckles again, but he manages to balance with only an elbow on the melted ship wall. “Sound like a plan?”

Bodhi nods quickly, always good with orders. There’s a loud thump as he drops down the ladder and Baze winces, but the pilot is conscious and can receive sympathy later. Chirrut can’t wait that long. Baze hobbles over to the compartment and lowers himself to the ground. He shifts and Chirrut’s staff hits him in the face. It hurts a lot more when it’s not Chirrut doing it jokingly. Baze grumbles and tugs it out of Chirrut’s lap, dropping it to the side. He can come back for it. He moves his left foot first and gets it on a rung, then starts his descent.

“Watch my right side,” Baze warns as he starts down. He’s about halfway when he realizes he should have shifted Chirrut to his right arm, but as he starts to slip, a hand goes out to keep him stable. The skin is red and peeled slightly, but not as bad as Bodhi’s face. Baze supposes he doesn’t want to see the left hand. With the added support, Baze’s good foot hits the floor, and he’s able to get the other one down with a minimal amount of pain. “I need oxygen,” he says. “We got any?”

Bodhi nods again. “There should be masks over the cots. Can you bring him to one?” He’s already scrambling to the closest cot like a street rat hunched over a stolen loaf of bread. Baze wonders if it’s the pain, or if they have more in common than he thought.

He tugs himself over and bends down as best he can to get Chirrut lying on the cot. Bodhi is fumbling with the small compartment above it, and though he manages to open it one-handed, he can’t get a good hold on the mask. Baze takes it from him with an appreciative nod. “They get your leg?” he asks as he pulls the mask around Chirrut’s face. The slight fogging of breath is more than enough to relax him.

Bodhi sits down hard on a couple of the crates. “Left leg’s fine, right leg’s a little singed,” he says. “I was able to make it mostly down here.” He’s got his left arm cradled, unmoving, against his chest. “Grenade,” he explains.

“Same here.” Baze nods towards his leg. He only now has the time to properly look at it. The stone is large, bigger than his hand, and it’s stuck just above his Achilles’ tendon. The blood is all the way up to his thigh, and Baze is sure that the entire leg is torn to pieces. He’s not going to tear up these pants and find out, though. This outfit has lasted him for goddamn years and he’ll not have it ruined.

Bodhi lifts an eyebrow and from the look on his face he’s already mastered only moving the left side. “How did you walk all that way?”

“With help from the Force.” Baze reaches and puts his hand on top of Chirrut’s right one, afraid of hurting the left even with his partner unconscious. There’s the sound of a voice from upstairs, and he frowns. “Jyn?”

“None of them came back,” Bodhi says, standing again. He moves towards the ladder, and Baze stands to move after them. He shouldn’t have left his weapons upstairs, but as he helps Bodhi get to the top floor, he can hear the slight crackle to the voice, coming through the comm.

“Rogue One! Rogue One, do you read me? Evacuate all remaining personnel immediately!”

Baze and Bodhi exchange looks briefly. “…you’re the pilot,” Baze says at last.

Bodhi sticks out his tongue for so short a moment that Baze almost feels he imagined it. He stumbles over towards the comm as Baze grabs Chirrut’s staff and uses it to carry the weight of his right leg. “Rogue One here,” Bodhi says, a little breathy from the quick movement. “No stormtroopers on our current location. Requesting delay of evacuation.” He looks up to Baze. “Cassian said they’d be back.” Baze nods. No one will be left behind, not their pushy leader, not the mouthy droid, and certainly not Jyn Erso.

“Do not delay the evacuation!” comes the sharp reply. “The Death Star has fired on Scarif, planet will be destroyed in T-minus five minutes!”

It hits harder than shrapnel in the leg, a comparison Baze wasn’t expecting to be able to make. He leans hard on Chirrut’s staff, and it holds him almost as steady as Chirrut himself would. “Bodhi,” he says quickly, “how long can we wait?”

“Not five minutes.” Bodhi grabs the comm again. “Evacuating now,” he says before slamming it back to the wall. “It will take me three to exit the atmosphere and one to get out of the blast radius…and I can barely fly.”

“Then you’re going to teach me how to do half of it.” Baze offers a hand to help Bodhi off the wall. “We’ve got a functioning body between us. But we can wait one minute?”

Bodhi swallows hard. “…yes,” he says, “we can wait one minute.”

“One minute.” Baze moves the staff so they can both use it as a support, the kyber beacon glowing blue on their faces. Bodhi is half-leaning into his shoulder as it is. They both stare out of the cargo hold, watching, hoping for movement.

One minute is far shorter than Baze thought it would be. They honestly might wait longer, a minute and a half, close to two, but Bodhi breathes in sharply and Baze takes it as a cue to hit the button and close the door. The quickly darkening room stings like burn welts; but he will not drop Chirrut from death’s grasp right into another explosion. “To the cockpit,” he says, and Bodhi nods.

Baze helps settle Bodhi in the pilot’s chair and remains standing, one hand on the throttle with Bodhi as the other reaches for buttons. Bodhi calls out each thing to press, and the cargo ship lifts into the air with a hum. “Up and out,” Bodhi says softly. He’s close to choking on the words. “Pull to the left.” Baze does as told, and the ship turns to the left and over the beach just as the horizon lights up with red.

The staff falls forward and smacks into the glass, and as Baze reaches to pull it away, two figures catch his attention. “Bodhi, lower the ship,” he says, pulling his throttle back. It sends a shudder through the ship as the two directions battle against each other. “On the beach!”

“We’re not gonna make it!” Bodhi shouts, but he pulls back as well and the ship slows. They get closer and Baze can make out the faces behind the burning blue light.

He grabs the staff and runs as fast as he can towards the back of the ship. “Bring us down to them and hold us steady!”

“It’s surprisingly difficult to do that with one hand!” Bodhi calls back, but the ship is lowering and Baze is able to get to the end without stumbling too much. He slams the button and the door opens.

“Jyn!”

Jyn and Cassian have their arms around each other, torn from an embrace as they stare up at the ship. Both look ragged, but neither is bleeding and they only stumble a bit as they move towards the ship. “Baze, we can’t reach!” Jyn calls.

“Here!” He lowers the staff into reach. “Grab it and hold on!” He can see Cassian look out towards the water, but Baze refuses to even chance the hesitation. Jyn and Cassian each get a hand on the staff and Baze pulls back as hard as he can. His leg screams protest, and the hard metal of the staff begins to bend, but after a moment Cassian’s hand can grab at the edge and he pulls himself up from there. With two extra hands, Jyn comes up just as quickly, and she closes the cargo door as Baze slumps back on the wall, breathing hard and holding the staff to his chest.

“We need to get out of here,” Cassian says, moving for the cockpit and leaving the two of them behind. Baze looks to Jyn, then holds out a hand to her.

She takes it, though she doesn’t need it to stand, only limping slightly. “Chirrut?” she asks, tone of reluctance apparent.

“Downstairs. I should go to him.”

“Is he—?”

Baze shakes his head. “If we can get him to a doctor in time, but—” He’s cut off as the entire ship lurches forward, sending him and Jyn both toppling over. Baze barely keeps himself from crushing her, but only by turning so that he lands on his bad leg instead.

“We’re out!” comes Cassian’s shout.

“What did you even do?!” Jyn pushes herself to her feet, then reaches to get her hands around Baze’s shoulder. She doesn’t quite have the strength to pull him up, but with her and the staff both, he’s able to stand again. Now the ship is a much brighter blue than from the kyber.

Cassian comes back out and practically collapses to the floor. Bodhi is quick to follow him, functioning eye even wider than normal. “We entered hyperspace,” he says shakily. “From within the atmosphere. There was a sixty-eight percent chance we could have died in a fiery ball.”

“As opposed to the one hundred percent chance if we stayed there?” Cassian lets out a quick breath. “Shit, everything hurts. Something is definitely broken.”

“I could say that about all of you. We should move downstairs to beds.” Jyn looks at Baze, and he nods at her.

“You can help them down. I’ll be able to get there myself.” Baze uses Chirrut’s staff to bring himself to the ladder, then sets it aside and carefully makes his way down. He’s immediately beside Chirrut again. His partner is still motionless, nothing but the slight rise and fall of his chest. “Almost there, love,” he mumbles. “You’ll be alright. You’ll be just fine.”

Jyn comes down the ladder first, helping Bodhi and Cassian down in turn. Cassian, devoid of adrenaline, has a tough time of it, but he brings himself to another cot and drops himself into it, which can’t be good for whatever he broke. Bodhi pushes the crates over so he and Baze can both sit on them as Jyn takes a spot on the floor. They sit in exhausted silence for a while before someone speaks.

“…we lost Kaytoo,” Bodhi says, eye going down to the floor.

“No we didn’t.” Cassian grumbles a little as he pushes himself back up to a sitting position, but he reaches inside his jacket and tugs out a black box. A few wires are disconnected, but besides that, it’s a completely undamaged hard drive. “He’s in here.”

Again, Bodhi breaks the silence, but this time with a laugh that turns into a cough. Baze gets an arm around his shoulders to steady him, and Bodhi slumps into his side. “We did it,” he says between coughs. “We did it. We all made it. How…how? It’s amazing!”

“It was the will of the Force.” The others turn to look at Baze, and though his eyes are only on Chirrut, he can feel the stares. He scoffs, just a bit. Oh, how Chirrut will laugh when he comes to.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, I publish something! There's plenty of ideas of how the squad survives Scarif, so I wanted to put mine to paper. It ended up being a little less spiritassassin than I wanted, but hopefully it was still enjoyable. Thanks so much for reading!!
> 
> To Ally with love <3


End file.
